Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Interview of Indie Artist Press: Marjorie Jones Cooke #RB4U

This past month I had a chance to speak with Marjorie Jones Cooke from Indie Artist Press. I have to confess, before this chat I had never heard of Indie Artist Press and had no idea what it could offer authors. After our conversation, not only did I come away with some new information (always a good thing), but I felt inspired by how much Marjorie and her team are invested in their authors. They're are up to some wonderful things. Check it out!

Q) Tell me about Indie
Artist Press. What is it and what can it offer authors?

A) Thank you so much for having
us in your blogosphere. Indie Artist Press is a real joy in my professional and
personal life and I'm excited to share it with you and your audience.

First and foremost, Indie
Artist Press is a publishing house. We're small, but we're growing. The kind of
house we are is what sets us apart from other small presses. We are a hybrid
publishing venture, bringing the very best of both self-publishing and
traditional publishing together under one roof.

To the reader, we offer
quality books that have been professionally edited, copy-edited, proofread and
formatted to the highest industry standards they have come to expect from small
and large presses.

To the author, we provide
all the services of a traditional publishing house, such as editing,
copy-editing, proofing, formatting, cover art, and marketing. The difference is
this: a traditional publisher provides those aspects of the process for the
lion's share of the book's proceeds indefinitely (usually for the life of the
copyright.) Indie Artist Press only splits the proceeds with the author until
the costs of those services have been recouped. After that, 100% of the
continuing proceeds from the sale of the author's books go to the author.

As an added bonus, if the
author prefers to invest in those services in advance, they have the
opportunity to invest less capital and receive 100% royalties from the day the
book is released.

Finally, and this is the
most important aspect of what Indie Artist Press is all about, there is a
vetting process for the books we'll add to our catalog. We have an obligation to our readers and our
authors to provide engaging, well-written and entertaining books. Our authors
trust our brand to ally them with other self-published authors who put in the
talent, time and investment to be successful.

Q) How did you come up
with the idea for Indie Artist Press?

A) I've been traditionally
published in the past and seen moderate critical success. After a hiatus during
which time I reexamined by personal goals, I decided that self publishing was
the right avenue for me.

I soon discovered that
self-published authors really don't get the respect they deserve most of the
time. After all, anyone with a computer, a modem and an Amazon account can
publish a book, right? Some of these books are excellent! Some of them need a
little work, and some of them give self-publishing a bad name.

My business partner and I
created Indie Artist Press to establish a brand that says, "Yes, I have
chosen to self-publish, but my work has gone through the same 'gauntlet' as any
traditionally published book."

So, the idea came from
wishing I had somewhere to go where I could maintain control of my literary
destiny without being "shelved" with poorly formatted, unedited
self-published books.

Q) Why get a barcode
through Indie Artist Press and not Bowkers?

A) At IAP, we include the
barcode with the overall investment plan. The author doesn't have to invest
separately. When we create the barcode for the print edition of a book, we
include the encoded price. If you look at the back of a book printed by
Createspace, for example, you'll see that the last digits in the barcode read
"90000." This is the generic code assigned to the basic barcode. It
should have the price included so that bookstores can easily add the book to
inventory stock and scan out for the sale.

At IAP, we'll take care
of assigning an ISBN and barcode to your book, so you don't have to worry about
it. IAP will be your publisher of record, rather than your name or the
distribution venue. It is this professional and well-branded alliance to a
publishing house that separates our "Indie Authors" from other
self-published authors.

Q) Do you help with the
promotion of a book as well?

A)We do! We have a vested
interest in seeing an author's book do well. Our website is an affiliate store,
so we earn a little bit on each sale. When it comes right down to it, IAP only
profits on the sale of the books. The investment made by the self-publishing
author goes to the artists, editors, formatters and others who work behind the
scenes to make the product the very best it can be. The self-publishing author
generally contracts for these services on their own, and they generally have to
pony up the dough ahead of time. (Or, if they don't have the cash, they skip it
altogether.)

Another reason promotion
is so important to us is the fact that we offer the option of investing zero
dollars until the book sells. There is no time limit on how long it takes to
fulfill the investment. If we've done our job well, we believe we'll see the
return on that investment relatively quickly. Here's the kicker: it doesn't
matter how long it takes. There is no time limit on the traditional investment.

We'll keep splitting
royalties, of course, but the author isn't "billed" for the
difference at any time. Because we only take on books that meet our standards,
we're willing to take that financial risk.

Q) How can an author tell
if their book is right for Indie Artist Press?

A) We are incredibly
diverse. We're looking for authors who want to self-publish not because they
have to, but because they choose to. If an author has written a great book, we
want to read it. That said, we're picky about content and an author can find
our submission guidelines on our website.

We love everything from
tasteful erotica to the most frightful horror and the most intriguing
edge-of-your-seat thrillers. We also accept children's books, middle readers,
and young adult fiction.

Currently, we have seven
imprints.

Q) What’s new at Indie
Artist Press? What are your goals for the upcoming year?

A) The biggest news right
now concerns one of our titles, Witch, by Rebecca Little. It's a short book; in
fact, it's so short we didn't originally put it into print. It was offered as
an ebook only until an Indie production company, Oxford Comma Film Cooperative,
optioned the movie rights. They have wrapped principle production and have
moved into the home stretch. You can find out more about the movie version ofthis way-out-there story at the website.

Our goals for the coming
year are simple: We want to establish IAP as a brand of quality with a great
reputation in the publishing community. We will provide readers books worth
reading and authors with a publishing experience that will be both
traditionally professional and uniquely indie.

And for the immediate
future, we have three or four titles coming out this fall. Two are brand new
releases from author's Susan R. Hughes and Rose Anderson, and two others are
First Time in Paperback re-launch titles from E. Ayers and P.T. Denys. We can't
wait to reveal the fall line up!

Q) Is there anything else
you’d like people to know about your company?

A) We are in it for the long
haul. Self-publishing is taking the world by storm with more and more
self-published authors hitting bestseller lists. With thousands of titles added
to the market each week, we believe it is and always will be important to
provide readers and booksellers with a means to separate the wheat from the
chaff.

Hybrid publishing
provides that means and allows for authors to maintain control of their bookish
futures while taking advantage of the new global publishing community.

And
now for some fun questions:

Q) What must you have by
your side or next to your computer while you work?

A) I enjoy refinishing old
furniture. Sometimes, I try to repurpose it, too. Most recently, I took a
rather tacky side table with a faux mahogany finish (circa 1980) and turned it
into a checker/chess table in turquoise and grey. It's gorgeous sitting on the
front porch. The checkers are seashells and crystal pebbles. I may have to
challenge someone to a game, now that I think of it.

Q) Quick, your house is
on fire. What is the one thing that you grab and take with you out of the
house?

A)It's funny you ask that.
We have twins; Emily and Phillip whom I refer to as Thing 1 and Thing Squared,
respectively. Phillip is a total geek in all the best ways, particularly in math
and physics. That's where his moniker comes from. So, both Things, for sure.
But when it comes to actual "things," I'd have to go with my suitcase
of life. It's an antique suitcase from the 1920s filled with old family photos
of great, great grandparents I've never met and every love letter my parents
ever wrote to each other. My father was a Naval Aviator for many years and made
more than ten deployments overseas while I was growing up. There are a lot of
letters. I'm not allowed to read them until... well, you know. They just
celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, but those letters would definitely
go with me. I'm just an old romantic when it comes right down to it, I suppose.

Q) What is your
screensaver on your computer?

A) A slideshow of my
grandchildren. They are getting so big!

Q) What is the one place
you’d love to visit, but haven’t done so yet?

A) I'd like to visit Marble
Bar, Australia. I used a little hotel there, the Ironclad Hotel, in one of my
books, with their permission of course, and I'd like to meet the lovely
gentleman who so kindly answered my questions about life in the Pilbara.

Q) You are also a
published novelist. Could you tell us about your books?

A)Thanks for asking! My first book, The Jewel
and the Sword, came out about 10 years ago, followed by a few more mass market
and trade paperbacks. Most of them are out of print, but still floating around
cyberspace as ebooks in various formats. The genres range from medieval
historical, which was really big 10 years ago, to 20th Century historical set
in the post WWI era in Australia.

I also write paranormal
romance titles under the pen name Starla Childs. Most recently, since coming
out of the proverbial closet about 5 years ago, I've been writing some lesbian
romance, as well. I'm a firm believer that love is love and I plan to continue
writing both lesbian novels and the good old-fashioned boy-meets-girl variety.
My most recent release, and by far the best seller, is Loving the Heartland.

The greatest part of
creating and operating Indie Artist Press has really been the ability to
associate myself with so many other, amazingly talented authors. I am proud to
list my titles right alongside theirs.

Thanks so much for stopping by and spending time with us!

Folks, come on out and show some love to Marjorie. She'll be on hand all day to answer questions about herself and her company, Indie Artist Press!

Marjorie Cooke is a published novelist of romance fiction. Twice nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award, Ms. Jones has been published by several small press publishers. In recent years, she has focused on professional non-fiction as a ghostwriter and content creator. Writing as Tennille Webster, she was named a 2011 "Rising Star" by Yahoo! Voices for contributions to Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Shine, and Yahoo! Finance, and earned a "Top 1000" credential during the same year. In 2005, she was awarded the Isolde Carlsen Award for Excellence in Writing and the Utah Chapter of the Romance Writers of America named her Utah Writer of the Year. She was a founding partner and is a former owner of Mojocastle Press. In 2015, her IAP release, Loving the Heartland, earned the #1 spot on the Australian Amazon Lesbian Fiction best seller list, and reached a pinnacle of #3 on the same list in the US and UK markets. She writes fiction as Marjorie Jones, Starla Childs and Raleigh Kincaid.

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Interview by Suzanne Rock:

A lifetime New Englander, Suzanne married her college sweetheart and has been with him for over twenty years. Every summer she drags her husband and two daughters to Maine on a quest for the perfect lobster dinner. Every fall she can be found down in Foxboro, Massachusetts cheering on her favorite football team. In between those trips, she’s a chauffeur, a maid, a chef, an event planner, a hairdresser, a wardrobe stylist, a tutor and a sometimes masseuse. To keep her sanity, she often drinks copious amounts of coffee and stares at the blank screen of her laptop, dreaming of great adventures. Sometimes she even writes them down for others to enjoy.